Monday, October 22, 2012

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

So... it was kindly brought to my attention by a dear (and encouraging) friend that I hadn't blogged in over a month!! Feeling sheepish, I posted a quick snippet of my review of October's Yumvelope, but that was weak in comparison to my typical posts. I.. am.. a slacker..

I do this, I do this and then I berate myself (clearly). I get in a good rhythm, do something diligently, then I take a break (such as vacation) and never get back on the wagon. I did it with flossing too! I flossed for like 6 months straight, went on vacation, and then forgot to start flossing again. Now now, I started back up so don't get all "ew" on me.. According to dentists, no one flosses anyways.

But, I digress, now back to the topic at hand. I'm back to wanting to blog again but I have some new things I need to add to my regime.

I recently saw some alarming pictures of myself on facebook and realized that I needed to drop some lbs post-haste before this got anymore out of control. So I joined (re-joined) my trusty weight loss plan- Weight Watchers!!

It is seriously the only commercial program I've found where people consistently and efficiently lost weight and I highly recommend it. They take the effort out of tracking your food intake and I have to admit- it's so fun adding the food and exercise to my list!*

One snafoo about this whole thing is, I swear that they penalize carbohydrate intake and reward lean proteins (ei. boneless skinless chicken breast). This makes for a tough, tough time for a vegan or vegetarian. Now some of you might think I'm crazy because the fruits and vegetables are free, but I swear that the nuts, beans, seeds etc. are higher points than their meat equivalents in protein (due to higher fat and carbohydrate I'm sure) so it's tricky meeting your protein needs.

So anyways, my point is, I'm going to valiantly search for WW friendly vegetarian/vegan products and also come up with some decent meals that don't blow your WW budget and are also vegan (or just about).

I'm sure some of you could argue that simply switching to a vegan diet helped you with weight loss instantly but, unfortunately for me, I'm a big snacker and I need to work on portion control- ergo, I use weight watchers.

2 comments:

I have no experience with Weight Watchers but I will tell you this: I was vegan for a long time, and pretty thin but not super-thin -- 5'2" and maybe, like, 122 pounds. I wasn't trying to lose weight either. And then I watched Forks Over Knives on Netflix Instant and realized I was eating too much junk food even as a vegan, and I started to eat mostly veggies and some fruit and grains, but not tons, and I cut way back on my oils and fats but, like you, if there are nuts in front of me I'll eat ALL THE NUTS so I try to avoid having them in front of me. When I feel like snacking, I just eat, like, salad, or a banana with just a bit of peanut butter or something like that, or a whole lot of delicious roasted cauliflower or whatever. BUT ANYWAY the point is that I was already skinny, and I didn't think that I could actually get more skinny, but now I'm down to 108 pounds, which is CRAZY because I've never been that weight that I can remember. If I start eating actual snack food I cannot stop, it's terrible (popcorn is my big thing where I'm like, "Oh, I'll just eat a little" but I end up eating tons). But I just have been cooking healthier food and satisfying my cravings by filling up on that and it's been very weight-losing for me.

Of course, I know everyone is different!!! Just sharing my experience.

Thanks! I'm definitely queuing that in my Netflix ASAP! I'm halfway through Food,Inc. too. I'm pretty good about snacking on fruits and vegetables but like you said, there's always room for improvement. Maybe if people would stop making such delicious vegan desserts and junk food we'd be okay eh? I'm still playing around with weight watchers, seeing what works best.